Something wicked
by Mirvena
Summary: There's a chill wind blowing over Tracy island. Kyrano's story; re-rated but otherwise unchanged.


Kyrano's story.

I've down-graded the rating on this story after advice from reviewers, and I very much appreciate their input. It contains themes I'd consider adult. I posit a more chaotic start to the Jeff/Lucy relationship than usual (although there isn't a whole lot of detail in canon) and I touch on this in this story. So the initial rating was not for language or sex, but because there is a clash of moral worlds and philosophies that some readers may not feel comfortable with. The story acts as a precursor to 'Reflections' which continues these themes and which can be found in the M section if you want to read it. The latter contains some profane language, but no explicit sex or violence.

So - mostly reminiscences, but portents of things to come. Dark in places. Based on the TV-verse but significantly AU so look away now if you don't want to go there.

Disclaimer: There must _be_ a maternal grandfather, so I guess it's a moot point who he belongs to. I've created Michael Shannon Sr. None of the other characters belongs to me.

…

**Something wicked…**

…

There is no reason that I am able to discern for my fearfulness.

Life has blessed me. A man's family is his life, and so I am twice-blessed. Once by my own, and again by his.

Man exists to create. I look out at what I have created here and marvel. Where there was barren rock on the edge of jungle, there is now order and delight. From my window I see the gardens and the blossoms on the trees. In these few short years there has been prolific abundance, and the gardens supply the house with orchids and my kitchen with many requisites. The house itself is harmonious and ordered, full of light and joy and hope.

The patriarch, too, is a creator. His vision is greater than mine; he is a man driven, but no longer by personal ambition. This is truly why his creativity has reached fruition. It is for others that he works so tirelessly.

I look more distantly now, and see movement and hear her laughter. She walks with his youngest, her sleek dark hair close to his fair locks, sharing the moment. They stop under the blossoms to kiss. Soon they will become lovers. Perhaps they already are. That is well. It is as it is meant to be.

My life is richer than I could have believed would be possible. So, again I ask, why should I not be content?

Something is coming to our little island home. I do not know what it is. But the portents have not been good.

I find myself so often drifting into the past these days. The past, the present and the future are the great circle. One cannot be without the other, and all that is and will be has its seeds buried deep in the past. And yet the future is fore-ordained. To understand where we are now we must understand where we have been. And to understand what is coming, we must understand where we are now. But this is where I falter, unable to see clearly. Is it my own past, or _his_, that troubles me?

…

I should remember our first meeting, but I do not. At the time it seemed he was just one of those many eager young people, keen to impress, to make a mark at the space agency. They were all worthy, but there seemed little to set them apart. In those days, like most young men and women, he _was_ ambitious for himself, of course. Perhaps this is why I did not recognise his other gifts, the ones that make him unique. But there were those who perhaps believed themselves in some fashion better than the rest us, while some of them took time to get to know all those with whom they worked. He was one of the latter.

He had a burning curiosity about the world, and an interest in cultures other than his own; in the years I have known him he has acquired much art from the orient, and I remember he was always full of questions. Unlikely as it seemed, we contrived to become, in those months, if not close friends, more, at least, than casual acquaintances.

The agency listed the seven men and women who had qualified for the Mars project. There was jubilation amongst those who were chosen, despondency amongst those who were not. He was amongst those who celebrated, I do remember that.

I did not see him for some time afterwards. But the next time I saw him, his eyes were troubled. It was the shortly before the launch that would send them to the lunar base for the first part of their journey, and I happened across him sitting on one of the benches in the solar arboretum, his head hanging low. The arboretum was the domain of the scientists and the tenders of plants, not of astronauts, but once in a while he had come to seek me out here.

He ran a hand through hair the colour of the desert sand. I watched him for a moment before he noticed me. He came to the present with a start, uncomfortable, perhaps, at being caught so deep in thought.

"Kyrano?" he asked.

I nodded, sat beside him. "I have wanted to see you for many days. To offer my congratulations on being chosen for the mission."

He nodded.

"And yet, you do not look happy about this," I observed. "Was it not what you have been training for?"

And then, hesitatingly, he began to speak. "It's Lucille, Kyrano."

"Ah," I nodded.

Their affair had begun just a few months earlier. She lived in New York. When they had first met he had described her to me in such loving detail so that I could almost see her in my mind's eye. She was fair and gentle-natured, and yet she burned with a fiery passion for life; her hair the colour of the sun, her eyes a fierce amber. She was a musician – those who consort with the muses have always fascinated him – and a mere stranger could see he had fallen deeply in love. But it was this love that was causing him pain, as it has done so very many times since.

He had visited her to tell her of his success, and to ask her to consider waiting for him. He had not been hopeful. It was to be a long wait – almost three years.

His eyes, dancing as he talked of her, clouded then. She had news of her own. The stirrings of incipient life. He shook his head as he spoke to me, a distant panic coming into his eyes. He was not ready for this responsibility – he believed himself too young, just twenty-five, too focused on his mission. And he could not be there for her. This was not the time.

I do not know what made him confide in me that day. Perhaps it was simply opportunity. I was there in the moment he needed to reach out to another human being. Or perhaps I held position just the right distance from him, neither close friend nor family, yet not a stranger either. Most likely he thought he would never see me again. Whatever his reason, he turned to me then.

There are few things in his life that have caused him shame. But I know that sometimes he looks back on those days with infinite regret.

He had asked her to wait until he returned.

Not only for him, but for a child. They were young - they had their whole lives ahead of them. _Or so he had thought_. She had become upset, they had argued. Eventually he had left, still angry.

"Was I wrong?" he asked of me.

"I do not know," I replied cautiously.

He spread his hands. "She isn't going to change her mind about having the baby. She's Catholic. I don't hold with all that – well you know that…" – indeed I did, for many of our discussions had revolved around spiritual and philosophical matters and I knew him to be a passionate humanist – "but her faith is important to her, Kyrano. And I had no idea how much she wanted a baby." He shrugged. "She's older than me. I guess she hears the click ticking or whatever it is with women." He voice had fallen to a mutter, and he spread his hands in despair.

"You have told me before that you are…" I searched for the correct idiom "_pro-choice," _I said carefully.

"Sure."

"It seems, then, she has made her choice."

"But she made it for _both_ of us. Is that fair? What do I do, Kyrano? Either I go on the mission and abandon her, or I pull out of the mission, and what…? Go back to the Air Force? Go into the family business? I don't know yet if we could make it as a couple, let alone as a family. I want so much to go on this mission. If I give up on it, maybe I'll end up resenting her for it. I just don't know. I didn't ask for this. I thought she was being more careful." His eyes tightened. "I can't believe I was such an idiot! But…"

He could not bring himself to say it. But I could see how torn he was.

"You are sure the child is yours?" I prompted gently.

"No…" He was agitated. "Yes. We…she says so, and I trust her." He sat back in the seat. "But…it's all happening so fast, Kyrano. Is she doing this to make me stay? She knew there was always the chance I'd make the team. Apparently it's due April first. How's that for a cosmic joke?" He looked down at his hands, shook his head. "When I left we were both angry. I've tried to call her since. She isn't returning my calls."

He rocked himself backwards and forwards for a few moments.

He did, in truth, look too young for this burden. Men in the west remain children longer than we do in the east. There was barely five years between us yet in that moment I felt a lifetime older.

"What do your families advise you to do?" I asked.

He shot me a despairing look. "They don't know. Her family are likely to take a pretty dim view. It isn't like they warmed to me a whole lot to begin with. And my mother doesn't even know I'm dating. She has some very old-fashioned ideas, Kyrano. What am I supposed to do? Ring her up and say _Hey Mom, by the way, I have a girl-friend, she's pregnant and I may or may not be the father, but either way I'm about to leave her for the next thirty months to raise the child on her own? Maybe you'd like the baby pictures? _She'll go nuts."

It occurred to me then, and not for the first time, that the bonds of family are so much less substantial in the West.

I clasped my hands together and leaned forward. Why I was drawn to him in that instant, I do not know. Perhaps even then in his weakest moment I discerned the greatness in the man. But I found myself wanting to say something that would ease the weight on his mind.

"You are feeling trapped because you see only two choices."

"What do you mean?"

"You tell me that you must choose either the space program or the woman you love. But how do you know this is so?"

"It's pretty clear." He sounded a little angry

"Did she ask you to choose?" I asked.

He stopped, confused. "Well, no, I suppose we hardly got around to that…the argument focused on whether or not she should keep the baby."

I sat back to let him think.

"I can't…it has to be the one or the other," he said finally. "Don't you understand? Can't you see that?"

"I do not see it at all. What is it that changed since you travelled to see her?"

He tuned on me, a sudden flash of anger in his eyes.

I held up my hand. "You asked me what I see. I have told you. It is an observation, not a judgement."

I rose then, and left him to his contemplations.

The following week he was amongst those who left in the rocket shuttle.

…

It must have been almost four years before I saw him again. I had all but forgotten our short encounter in the arboretum. A reunion for the Mars astronauts and their support team, a grand dinner to be held that evening.

I glimpsed him through a crowd gathering in the concourse during the afternoon, the excitement of meeting old friends, of introducing his new wife, evident in his movement. His eyes met mine briefly and a softness touched them. He looked away, his attention caught by another renewed acquaintance, and I thought that it would be the last that I saw of him, but later, he steered his way through the crowd, bringing her with him, a young child tugging at her skirts, and the promise of another in the fullness of her belly.

"Lucy – this is Kyrano."

I struggled to remember if this was the woman of which he had spoken. But the age of the child seemed about right, and I remembered his description of her.

We talked awhile. I made no reference to our conversation that day in the arboretum.

It seemed they had found the third way.

When the little family left I did not expect to see any of them again. But our fates were destined to be forever intertwined.

…

I saw Lucy once more, some years later. By then I had moved to France. Wherever I work, I do my best, and I learned quickly, and from the best. I was establishing my own reputation.

Nonetheless, I was surprised when they asked for me by name, at the restaurant at which I now worked. I had heard rumors of the death of a relative, a move to New York to take up the reins of the family business. So here he was in Paris on a business trip, and they had made time for a short vacation without their sons.

The following night they asked me to dine with them. They treated me courteously – more than courteously, as a friend. I was still unsure why they had looked me up. But I read real gratitude in his face and once again I remembered our brief meeting. It was to be the last time for a very long time that I saw him truly happy.

Lucy made delightful company, gifted as she was in drawing out conversation from a near stranger. She was interested, vivacious, amusing. He sat back and let us talk much of the time, and I watched him simply observe her. I saw the look in his eyes. I have rarely seen a man so much in love. I knew then that he could not have made any decision other than the one he had made.

Under her beauty and her energy, I detected fragility. I wondered if he knew she was ill.

…

My own life moved on with pace.

Like him, I fell deeply in love.

I thought it was reciprocated. The affair was a passionate one. We – _I _- spoke of love. I saw a future for us together.

She did not. She took from men what she wanted. Like Lucille what she had wanted at that moment in her life was a child. Unlike Lucille, she was not in love, as I learned to my cost.

She was not the kind of woman who can be tamed. She yearned for adventure, and sought it at every opportunity.

One day I awoke and she was gone.

I felt foolish and angry. Most of all, I felt that she had taken something from me that she had no right to take. My fatherhood. I longed for the child I knew that she carried.

From time to time she wrote. Her letters and cards came from sundry corners of the world. Now from India, now Greece, now Tunisia. The child was born, a girl. Sometimes there were photographs.

She did not stay in one place long enough to allow me to find them.

I threw myself into my work, bitter in the knowledge of what I had lost.

…

When the request came from New York, it was entirely unexpected.

I am unsure why I answered it. Perhaps I felt an affinity with him. We had both loved and lost. I had heard of Lucille Tracy's death, three years earlier, and grieved a little for him.

But something drew me to him, and in truth, I thought it was time to move on. I had been considering a move for some time – perhaps back to Kew, which had been my first appointment upon leaving my home country. My health was not quite as it was, and the post I held demanded a vigour I no longer truly possessed. And I admit that my motives were not entirely altruistic. I thought that perhaps, with his connections, he could help me find my daughter.

I travelled back to America. There was an interview, but not with him. I was met at my hotel and driven to the offices of a major financial institution, and much to my surprise was introduced to a stranger in his early sixties. He was a slim man, with dark, greying hair and calm blue eyes. A man of quiet dignity and poise, but his face also betrayed loss.

"Come in, please, Mr bin Pa…."

"Kyrano," I corrected gently with a short bow. I am used to Westerners struggling with our customs.

"Mr Kyrano, I'm sorry."

He showed me to a seat and regarded me thoughtfully, holding out a hand.

"Michael Shannon. I'm the boys' grandfather. It's good of you to come all this way. Jeff seemed very adamant that you were the man for the job. He says Lucy liked you. But I wanted to meet you myself."

His tone betrayed his lack of conviction. He did not share his son-in-law's views. "I have to admit you weren't exactly what I had in mind when I told him to hire an _au pair_. I'm struggling to see why you would consider coming all the way from a Michelin starred restaurant in France for what is essentially a housekeeping post. I know Jeff can pay top rates, but nevertheless…"

How could I explain? I made up reasons. I talked about my experiences of my own younger siblings. They must have sounded plausible. He asked questions. He struck me as a man of some discernment.

At length he frowned. "Well, I guess you'll do. But it's important to all of us that this works. What has Jeff told you about why we need your help?"

I shook my head. In truth I had been told very little.

"Well, the last three years have been traumatic for everyone. The boys have been in Kansas since their mother died," Shannon said. "Jeff's mother has been doing her best to look after them but I guess five boys are a handful, and Jeff spends most of his time here in New York tending to his business. I had a phone call from an old friend of Jeff's a couple of months ago that left me in no doubt that things aren't working out so well. I appreciate that Jeff's had it tough and I don't want to make things any more heated than they are already. But I have warned him that if he doesn't move the children back to New York where we can keep an eye on them all, I intend to sue for custody. I'm close to retirement. It's an option."

It was clear he was a man who meant what he said. But I was surprised that he would tell a complete stranger such a thing.

"He's busy with his work. He can't be with the kids all the time. I'll help out where I can, of course. But the two little ones are still home all day and the others need someone who'll be there for them at the end of the school day. Jeff needs someone to keep house and look after the children. I guess if you really want the job, Mr Kyrano, it's yours."

Later – many years later - I understood much more clearly.

…

I met the whole family the following weekend. Jefferson Tracy looked tired and ill, and grateful to see me.

"Scott, why don't you introduce Kyrano to your brothers while I see to his things?"

The child was unrecognisable as the infant who had clung to his mother in the crowded NASA concourse. I surmised that he would be eleven or thereabouts now, and he was curiously polarised, even in those days, all raw energy one moment and calm efficiency the next. He led me into the family kitchen. It was a large room and seemed to double as a play-room for the children. There were four younger boys.

"Okay," my guide started. "Well, I was named Michael after Gramps, but everyone always calls me Scott, after Scott Carpenter, the astronaut. Over there," he gestured at a stocky child sitting at the table, "is Virgil, but everyone calls him Gussie."

"Do not," the child scowled. "That's a baby name. My name's Virgil, Mister."

"Don't mind him," said my guide equably. "He's still sore that we moved from the farm."

"And do _you_ not miss it?" I asked. It seemed to me that any child would prefer the lure of the empty Kansas plains to the bustle of the city.

He shrugged. "Not really. The horses, maybe, but there are plenty of places you can ride in New York. I'd rather be with Dad and Gramps. But Gussie's still mad at everyone. That's John, over there – we call him Johnny _for short_." He laughed at his own joke. "Sometimes Dad calls him his Midwich Cuckoo," he added.

I was well used to the strange customs of the West and smiled at him.

"Hey, Mister," the little fair one said.

"Hello," I responded.

"Johnny's real smart. The kid with candy all over his face is Gordon." Scott picked up a damp cloth and began to attend to the infant, who smiled happily and stuck out his tongue to show us the remnants of a chocolate bar. An unspoken emotion tugged deep inside me. My own daughter would be about the same age as this little one. "He answers to Tig. Watch out for him, Mr Kyrano. He's going through a phase of leaving stuff in people's shoes. And the little guy over there is Alan. He doesn't really have a nickname, but if he's crying we tenda just call him 'It'. Do you think you'll remember all that?" It was said with less arrogance than it may sound as I recount it now.

"Scott, _Virgil_," I said carefully. The little auburn-haired one beamed at me triumphantly, the sudden sunniness a sharp contrast to his previous demeanour. "John, Gordon, and Alan."

"Great. People always get the five of us mixed up. I guess it's because there are so many of us. You got any brothers, Mr Kyrano?"

"I too am the oldest of my siblings. I have thirteen brothers," I told him, "and four sisters."

"Wow!" He seemed impressed and disappointed at the same time. "Then I guess we're not that special."

John's eyes opened wide. "There's eighteen of you? How come there are so many?"

Indeed it seemed he was…smart.

"Where I come from we often have large families," I told him, "and when my mother died, my father met another woman and had more children." After my father's death she, too, had taken a second spouse, but I chose not to complicate the story.

I felt rather than saw the eldest child bridle at my elbow. "That's not going to happen to Dad," he said softly.

I glanced down at him, troubled suddenly by my own memories.

But, unheeding, he moved closer to me, and, oddly for a child his age, slipped his hand into mine and looked up at me with trust in his eyes. "Now that you're here maybe he'll stop thinking he has to find us a new Mom."

…

I waited patiently for word of my daughter. I heard nothing.

I intended to broach it with my employer. Somehow, I did not. I was busy with my new charges. He had his own difficulties. The time never seemed right.

I grew close to this little family. I began to know them. There were small rituals. With little Alan, it was a song before bedtime. With Gordon, endless games of make-believe; with John, the long conversations about the stars and about the great philosophers. Virgil remained aloof for a long time but I would sit with him as he practised a difficult passage again and again on the pianoforte, until mastery was gained. And slowly he began to confide in me. Scott was a different matter again. He was – and remains – the strongest of them in many ways, but his strength is brittle and forged of adversity. He cannot and will not let down his guard with his own father, and certainly not with strangers. I have seen him again and again – even with my own daughter – be courteous and affable but difficult to get to know. And yet he reached out to me that first day, and I lost my heart to him in that moment. I have loved him as my own ever since.

I saw the family through good times and bad times.

The small triumphs – at school, on the sports field, in the concert room. And for the father, the larger successes, the acquisitions and the mergers.

The childhood illnesses.

The yearly anniversary of her death.

And the day his eldest was snatched from him and held to ransom. We made light of it before the younger boys, telling them he had met with a cycling accident, for fear of traumatising them. When the boy was found some days later, having apparently evaded his captors, he was haggard and there was a wildness about him. There was much about the incident that was left unexplained.

During those four days, I glimpsed something beyond even the natural fear a father would have for a lost son. I have never seen my employer – my friend - so frantic. I have never been certain what it was. I knew that his relationship with his eldest had been an uncomfortable one from the outset. There were many things that lay unspoken between them – and there have been many other things since that have been spoken in anger. I suspect it was the possibility that these matters would never now be resolved that troubled him so very much. I have seen the same look many times since, when news from the war zone was bleak, or when a rescue looks as though it may turn sour. He masks it better than he used to, that is all.

And yet, still he could not move himself to mend what had gone amiss.

And still I could not speak of my own loss.

When Michael Shannon died suddenly the following year the Tracy family moved back to Kansas. I did not go with them, but moved back to Malaysia. There I had a great many adventures. Many…

…_and yet, as I try to recall them now they slip from me as so much smoke in the wind…but I know the memories are there…surely retrievable, if I wished to make the effort. But I tire, and shiver now, in the night air. Where…?…_

Many…I had many adventures. But something was gone from my life, and I thought it would be for ever.

…

Four years came and went. I kept in touch with my second family from time to time, most particularly with Scott. The eldest son had not remained long on the farm; nevertheless he contacted me regularly from his lodgings in New Haven and later from England. More change was coming. Both the second and third sons prepared to leave home that summer; Virgil to neighboring Colorado, and John, his early promise still upheld, to Massachusetts. Scott had applied to join his country's Air Force. I imagined the household becoming quieter. I did not expect that I would see the whole family together again, even on visits.

But two things happened, less than a year apart.

The first occurrence was the arrival of a letter.

This letter was different from the ones that had gone before. Usually they were brief, giving away little that could lead me to her. This was longer. It spoke of illness, of need. Finally, after all those years, it told me where she could be found.

I travelled for a day and a night to arrive in Athens.

She lay, looking somehow paler than the starched whiteness of the surrounding walls of the convent hospital. She was thin and in pain, the translucence of her face betraying the canker eating away inside her. I felt pity, but also anger. And still, in spite of myself, a little love.

Standing at her side, pale, frightened, a child on the cusp of womanhood.

It was less than a week before life left her mother. A week during which I hesitantly got to know my own child.

It was plain at once that she had an adventurous spirit, like her mother, but she was less restless. She was fearful of the future, and yet a little angry, too. Her anger was unfocused. For a while I felt it was directed at me. It took time before I understood it was not. She was beautiful, and intelligent, and cautious in her dealings with people. She spoke fluent Malay, and Greek, and English and a smattering of other languages gleaned from the countries she had visited. Her knowledge of geography was wide, also garnered from experience. Her mother had taught her mathematics and literature and astronomy.

We grew closer. It was a good time. Much of the pain and loss I felt when her mother left was assuaged for the first time in many years.

But the second happening was a telephone call from my old employer.

I listened, increasingly dumbfounded as he described in loving detail the plans he had drawn up for a new organization dedicated to helping those in desperate peril. It sounded implausible, impossible, even. And yet, if there was one thing I had learned about the man, it was that if he settled on something, he would make it happen.

But things were becoming difficult again at home for him, even with the older boys gone. And he wanted help to prepare for a move to a secret location. When he asked that I come back to help with his household affairs so that he was free to pursue his dreams I felt strangely drawn. I told him I would think on the matter. I wondered how he would react to the tidings of my daughter, and falteringly I began to tell him my own news.

There was a hesitation for a moment. "Why ever didn't you tell me all this before, Kyrano? I might have been able to help you find her."

How could I explain?

He was warm. "Bring her with you, Kyrano. When you arrive we'll talk about her education. Now that the older boys have moved out, there's room in the farmhouse. We'll figure something out for vacations. And there'll be plenty of room when we move to the island."

Again it is a mark of the man that he has always treated her as one of his own. He always wanted a daughter, I know, and I was glad to share her, as he had shared his sons.

They greeted her curiously, the youngest two, and she them, though there was a flash of defiance in her eyes when they asked her name.

"I am Tien-Tiana…" she hesitated and gave me a shy look. Until now she had retained her mother's name. Then she placed her hand in mine. "Tien-Tiana binti Kyrano," she affirmed.

The fourth, the closest to her in age, groaned aloud. He tried her name, and failed, I am certain with deliberate intent. "That's just far too many Bins and Tins for me. Whadyasay we just call you Tin-Tin?"

And so it was.

…

The light fades quickly here on the island. Once the sun drops beneath the horizon, the blackness quickly envelops us.

The night is warm, balmy, and yet I feel a shiver as though touched by something cold. Worse. Something immeasurably evil.

The feeling is not just tangible, it is embodied, visceral. The English bard knew.

_By the pricking of my thumbs…_

I do not know what is coming. But the blackness creeps up on us, almost imperceptibly. Somehow the past and the future will meet. And I have a part to play, for good or evil, though what this is I cannot begin to discern.

I close the door quickly, and retreat into the comfort of my kitchen.

…


End file.
